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Article 4772 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rmarsh@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Language as Technology: A Phenomenological Study
Message-ID: <1992Mar28.183025.7158@waikato.ac.nz>
Date: 28 Mar 92 06:30:25 GMT
References: <1992Mar27.224344.7150@waikato.ac.nz> <1992Mar27.154137.6740@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Mar28.140324.7155@waikato.ac.nz> <1992Mar28.052750.4420@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Lines: 31

In article <1992Mar28.052750.4420@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu 
(Neil Rickert) writes:
> 
>  You very well may be able to think about a dog without essential language
> use.  But without language I doubt you could think about the theory of
> relativity; about gravitation; about the earth going around the sun rather
> than the sun going around the earth.
> 
I can certainly visualise Earth going around the sun and can imagine
learning it without language. As for the others I don't know, I've never 
tried. But I get your point.

>   I'm not sure I understand your point.  Are you suggesting that because
> you have built linguistic descriptions, you can no longer visualize the
> face as well?  If this is your implication, consider the possibility that
> you could never visualize the face very well, but had merely deceived
> yourself into believing you could.  Now, confronted with your linguistic
> descriptions, the imperfections of your visualization are suddenly obvious
> and you no longer fall victim to this self deception.
> 
I'm fairly sure that's not the case. However now that I think about it, the
application of language to my image may have nothing to do with its
deterioration. In fact the fact that it has deteriorated does tend to lend
weight to your 'fallability of analog memory' theory.

Stumpy.

--
Robert 'Stumpy' Marsh | Brought to you from the bottom of the world
rmarsh@waikato.ac.nz  | both topographically and socio-politically.
+64 7 855 4406        | Whatever happened to Godzone?


